Ephesians 6 v 5 Servants, be obedient to them that are your
masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in
singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;
6 Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of
Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;
7 With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to
men:
8 Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same
shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.

What sort of carpenter do you think the Lord Jesus Christ was?
Was he good at the job? Did He work long hours? Were there
blemishes in the pieces of furniture that he turned out? Did
people come from miles around to buy articles made by Him?

The answers to these questions can only be guessed at based on
what we know of our saviour – but none of His woodwork of
2000 years ago is likely to have survived, if we judge that by
the aging process of wood in this world corrupted by sin.

But we can take another direction in discovering what sort of
workman the Lord Jesus Christ was. We can listen to His word and
discover what His standards for work are today, based on His
perfect role model – for we know that the Lord never asks
us to exceed a standard that He had not Himself achieved as a
man.

There was once an old preacher in Chicago who was quite a bit
past retiring age. A visitor asked him what his work was. He
replied, “ I pack meat into tins to live; but my work is
preaching the Gospel.” At first sight this is a wonderful
tale that causes us to admire such a man. But let us further
reflect on what he was actually saying. Was his attitude right?
Was it the attitude of the Lord Jesus Christ? We started by
thinking of Jesus in the carpenter’s shop. If we apply the
old preacher’s statement to the life of our saviour we spot
a problem. It is a fact that for the most of His working life the
Lord Jesus Christ fashioned wood into beautiful and useful
objects. However if His real work, the work of
preaching the gospel, started three years before He died on the
cross, then we can see the old preacher’s faulty thinking
that devalued his secular occupation into second-class work.

The next section of Ephesians 6 is about work. It is about
working for two employers – a human employer and a heavenly
employer – both at the same time!

Ephesians 6 v 5 – 8.

5 Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters
according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of
your heart, as unto Christ; 6 Not with eyeservice, as
menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God
from the heart; 7 With good will doing service, as to the Lord,
and not to men: 8 Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man
doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond
or free.

Again we need to remind ourselves that Paul is being very
practical in Ephesians and the letter has as its focus, at the
end, rules for Christian living. From chapter 4 onwards it has
been an application of the doctrine of chapters 1 – 3. In
Chapter 4 v 12 - 13 he states his desire for his beloved brothers
and sisters in the churches –

12 for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13 Till we all
come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son
of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of
the fulness of Christ:

He has been telling us how this is to be worked out and how
ordinary believers like us can be equipped to follow his ethical
lead – Chapter 5 v 18 has the key

And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled
with the Spirit; 21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the
fear of God.

Christians are to submit themselves one to another – not
as doormats, but as willing servants one of another, falling over
each other to please one another in the fear, or out of respect
for God. We recognise each other’s value – together
we are image bearers of the most High God, who has created
us.

So this next section, following as it does the details of our
responsibilities as wives and husbands, children and parents, is
about work relationships.

Firstly we have to understand the context of Paul’s
words to the Ephesians. In Roman times 2000 years ago vast
numbers of people, including many of the members of the early
Gentile Christian church, were sold and bought like articles of
clothing – they were slaves. There were no Wesley’s
or Whitfield’s to lead a religious revolution with the
result that the slaves were emancipated – as happened in
our country. Slaves were treated as property – some were
intelligent and valuable slaves who were endowed with many
talents and skills – others were skivvies. All were held in
the grip of inhuman laws with vicious cruel punishments for
laziness. Many suffered the threat of change of ownership and the
death of a kind and benevolent master could bring about a change
in the slave’s circumstances that were terrifying.

Slavery was a fact of life in the Roman world in which Paul
moved and ministered. Many slaves became believers in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Fewer slave owners, masters, became believers
– but some did.

The master/slave relationship was familiar to all, much as our
employer/employee arrangements are familiar to us. Slaves in
those days often had in their hearts deep resentments about their
lot in life. However the Gospel preacher and messenger of the
Lord Jesus Christ, Paul, told slaves who had become Christians to
submit willingly to their masters. The time had not yet come that
the shackles could be removed and as slaves they had one supreme
task and social duty – to obey their masters.

We will think about verses 5 – 8 in two parts this
morning

1. The Duty of the Christian Servant to his human
master.

2. The Duty of the Servant of Christ to his heavenly
Master.

As we look at the scriptures we will discover that the
instructions in one area are the same in the other.

1. The Duty of the Christian Servant to his human master. V 5
– 6a

5 Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters
according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of
your heart, as unto Christ; 6 not with eyeservice, as
menpleasers;

It may be that as a congregation some of us are getting a
little worn out with all these exhortations to be submissive and
obedient. Certainly this theme is repetitive in this section of
the series of sermons in Ephesians – but Paul has a purpose
– he does not want to leave anyone out of his practical
applications of God’s truth. If you are not a husband, a
wife or a child, then in some respect you are a worker under
authority, or if not a worker, we are all subject to someone in
society. Even the retired believer, the disabled or unemployed
are WORKERS. We all have work of some kind – work is part
of life. So let not those who are, for whatever reason not what
we called GAINFULLY EMPLOYED, think that this teaching is not for
them!

The word rendered “SERVANTS” here is more usually
translated SLAVES. It is DOULOS that reminds me of one of the
missionary ships run by OM that takes the gospel message around
the world visiting ports and places near to the ports.

The first part of verse 5 concerns

1. The Duty of servants to be obedient to the claims of their
human masters.

Masters according to the flesh is Paul’s way of
distinguishing between the 2 masters that the Christians slaves
had. Paul did not state in any way that the Gospel should bring
slavery to an end. There are different kinds of slavery that have
to be recognised. In the Old Testament Jehovah permitted the
possession of slaves under certain conditions. Exodus 22 tells of
a burglar who could not make restitution for his crime had to be
sold into slavery –

1 If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or
sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for
a sheep. 2 If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that
he die, there shall no blood be shed for him. 3 If the sun be
risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should
make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be
sold for his theft.

But this never gave any Israelite the right to go and round up
men and women from a neighbouring nation and indiscriminately rob
them of their freedom and force them to work as slaves in
bondage. This is what the slave traders did 300 years ago with
Africans and it was unjust and cruel. Kidnapping is a crime
according to the previous chapter of Exodus 21 v 16

and he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be
found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

No defence of slavery of the kind that went on until abolition
in the 1850’s by Wilberforce and his colleagues can be
justified by appealing to Moses’ teaching in the OT.

Indeed the Old Testament opposes all cruel forms of slavery
absolutely. There was welfare of slaves in God’s mind
–

Deuteronomy 15 v 12 And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an
Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then
in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. 13 And
when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him
go away empty: 14 Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy
flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that
wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto
him. 15 And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the
land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I
command thee this thing to day.

The servant /master relationship could actually be beneficial
to both parties. Notice how kind the centurion was in Luke 7
– he said that his servant was precious to him and he came
himself to Jesus to obtain healing. There was a mutual benefit in
that household. There is the story of slaves in a household of a
wealthy man who decided, under social pressure to emancipate all
his servants and free them. But the slaves went on strike in
order that they might stay with their master – such was
their happy lives with such a good master.

The Old and New Testaments combine in showing a balanced
approach to social situations with the effect that the benefits
of freedom and the benefits of being bound to a master are BOTH
compatible with belief in God and His Son the Lord Jesus
Christ.

So now we can bring this teaching to bear on our own modern
society where slavery was abolished 150 years ago but there
remains employment of some to work for others. Servants now are
those who willingly work for others and they are paid for it.
Every employee is a servant of some kind, and has a “master
according to the flesh.” For ease of understanding we can
see this as our “bodily masters” – those who
have a right to our bodies and minds because for pay we make them
available to them. But they do not have any right to our souls
– only God has the right of Mastery over these never dying
features of our humanity. It is an earthly mastery –
Christ’s is a heavenly and there is no problem about having
two masters in this instance. This is a totally different
situation to the Lord’s teaching in Matthew 6:24

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the
one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and
despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Here the saviour distinguishes money wealth and riches, that
have the capacity to become objects of worship and therefore a
competitor with God Himself. This is different from serving an
employer and giving him earthly service, loyalty and diligence,
and serving the Lord God. Paul is arguing here that it is
legitimate to have an earthly employer master and still serve
wholeheartedly our Heavenly Master. This is why he calls these
masters “bodily masters.” These masters/employers
have legitimate claims on us – our time and effort. And we
are to do as they tell us – be obedient to them
– they have the right to be the boss. Next

2. The Duty of servants to be in Submission to the claims of
their human masters.

With fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart,

The slaves addressed in Paul’s letter were to behave
with great humility and respect (fear) with reverence of their
masters whether they were believers or not, and to give honour to
them, with carefulness not to offend them. They were to react
with submission to their reproofs and corrections, and with fear
of punishment. We do not like the word subservience do we? In
fact it is a quality that we do not admire – we can just
about cope with obedience – but we find difficulties with
subservience.

Was Paul demanding subservience to masters in this verse? It
would appear not – but he does exhort Christian
servants/slaves to be absolutely subservient to the Lord Jesus
Christ – utter yieldedness to Him and His commands.
Bringing this up to date again the Christian employee must be
afraid – but not afraid of his employer or superior, but
afraid of disobeying His Lord.

Indeed if we as employees, whatever our jobs, do not show
wholehearted respect to our employers, we are disobeying the
Lord!

“Singleness of heart” means to do your work
honestly and with wholehearted dedication to the task at hand.
Today there is a trend to do the minimum possible that you can
get away with; shoddy workmanship from men charging high labour
fees is common; people who watch the clock so that they are not
at the workplace a minute longer than they have to be – all
of these and many more describe the servant/master ethos. It
seems that shirking and slacking on the job is considered a
clever thing to do, and when an employee is taken to task along
comes a Union Rep to fight for that person’s right to
remain on the job, disregarding how lazy, incompetent,
indifferent or insolent he is – no matter how he lies and
reports late for duty, or tries to disaffect the other workers
– the union man will fight his corner. Why is this? The
union has taken away his fear of man. Presumably this worker
never had any fear of God either – singleness of heart did
not come into it!

The Christian employee is at work for the Lord Jesus Christ.
This does not mean that he is to be witnessing every minute of
the day with spiritual conversations and giving out tracts! It
means that he is to be the best employee that his boss has,
whether he be a builder’s labourer or a shop worker. The
Christian on the factory shop floor who is living his life for
Christ and doing the best job he can, is the only tract or Bible
that some of his colleagues will ever read! His singleness of
heart is as unto the Lord. Is this the testimony of those of us
who go to work outside the home? Do we ever join in with
disrespectful talk amongst other workers about our bosses? Or can
we honestly say that we have singleness of heart as unto Christ?
Are we truly working for the Lord?

3. The Duty of servants to be diligent in the interests of
their human masters.

6 not with eyeservice, as menpleasers;

How many of us can remember this situation at school? We were
working away in class very hard under the watchful eye of the
teacher, a teacher who was in good control and stood no nonsense.
All the class had their heads down doing calculations and in
modern parlance “on task.” A knock comes at the
classroom door and the teacher is called out of the room leaving
the class alone. What usually happens – can you remember?
One by one we stopped working – conversations were struck
up – distractions abounded and work ceased. What had
happened? Simply this – while we children were under the
eye of the teacher, while we were being watched, we worked. As
soon as he left we shirked.

While he watched us we were diligent; after he had gone we
were negligent.

So it can be in the workplace. Some will only work when they
are being watched and supervised. I am ashamed to say that, as a
child that just about summed me up in my school reports –
“Needs constant supervision!” I had a
“butterfly brain” one teacher said, flitting from
idea to idea with little concentration. Growing up and maturity
and kindly discipline along the way sorted me out.

The Lord is looking for reliability in His workers, as they
work for employers, who can be trusted to work unsupervised.

There is another term here with respect to our relationship
with our employers – not as menpleasers.
There are those who seek to please their masters. They do a
really good job when the boss is around – helpful courteous
and nothing is too much trouble. That employer thinks so highly
of him and has him in line for promotion. What the boss
doesn’t know is what the employee gets up to when the boss
is on holiday or out of the office – lazy, calls in sick
when really he is healthy, wasting his bosses time in idle
conversation or even conducts personal business in work time
using the boss’s phone. This is a manpleaser in action and
it is a way of the world, and not for the Christian worker.

There was once a Christian sales assistant who was asked to
give a customer more than he was paying for. The customer said,
“It’s alright, your supervisor’s not
looking.” The Christian replied, “My Master is ALWAYS
looking.” This is how the Christian is to think. Even when
the human master is absent the Lord Jesus Christ is always there,
watching.

All of these things – obedience, submission and
diligence are for the Christian, as unto the Lord. The best way
to witness at work is to do a good job. It is not long before
work colleagues find out that you are a believer. Then you will
be under the spotlight. How does a believer do the job? How does
a believer cope with gossip, with risqué jokes, with the
office fiddle? How will the believer cope with the
employer’s goods being taken home – and it happens
doesn’t it?

Some employers expect some pilfering and they turn a blind
eye. This was being discussed by two believers who observed the
terrible waste of plastic tubes being destroyed as surplus when
somebody could have used them. One Christian said to the other,
“Doesn’t the Bible say, “Thou shalt not muzzle
the ox that treadeth out the corn?” Shouldn’t you
allow an ox to pick up what it can while it is on the job?
Doesn’t that mean that we ought to be allowed to take what
we need from what is being wasted at our work?

The other shrewd believer replied, “That’s fair
enough for girls in a sweet factory – but what about those
who work at the Bank of England’s printing
works?”

The point is, waste is wicked, but so is stealing!

2. The Duty of the Servant of Christ to his heavenly
Master.

Verse 6b but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God
from the heart; 7 With good will doing service, as to the Lord,
and not to men: 8 Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man
doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond
or free.

The emphasis now switches to the work of the believer who is
working for Christ although the distinction between secular and
sacred is a false one given all that has been said already. All
service and work is on a higher plane for the Christian. We are
in God’s will when we do secular tasks working for a boss,
and we are in God’s will when we do so-called sacred,
Churchy type tasks. In the verses we see an abolition of the
distinction between the two. John Philips remarks

“We are all of us in the ministry – in
full time service – the plumber as much as the preacher,
the economist as much as the evangelist, the policeman as much as
the pastor, and the miner as much as the
missionary.”

Here in these verses the Lord Jesus Christ is the master and all
of His believing people are his willing slaves. We are working
for the Lord, no matter what we do, in his will. Therefore all
work must be done from the heart. How is this worked out?

When our minds are convinced that our work is
God’s will
then we are motivated by a heart of duty saying,
“I ought to.”

When our minds are compelled to believe that our work is
God’s will
then we are motivated by a heart of discipline saying,
“I have to.”

But when our minds are captured by the Lord in order to
serve him
then we are motivated by a heart that is devoted saying,
“I want to.”

What was the motivation of our Lord Jesus Christ when He went
to do the work of redemption at Calvary? His heart was full of
duty – for the covenant had been made. He ought to
die. His heart was full of discipline – he had to
die. But His heart was also full of devotion – He
wanted to die for His people –

Mark 10 v 45 For even the Son of man came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom
for many.

But as we come to a conclusion, what about this 8th
verse

Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same
shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.

It has been said that the Lord’s payday is not at the
end of the week – it is at the end of our lives! I had a
friend who used to say when some kind deed had been done by
someone, “He’ll get his reward in heaven – he
won’t get it here!” That is not strictly true because
sometimes the Lord does reward us a little along the way. But
whatever we receive are only tokens of what we shall receive one
day in glory. Payday is at the judgment seat of Christ.

There is a story of the old missionary who was returning home
to America after many years of service in Africa. On the same
ship was President Theodore Roosevelt, returning to the states
after a big game hunt in a safari Park also in Africa. When the
ship docked in New York great crowds greeted the president and
the press was there to cover the story. The old missionary and
his wife walked off the ship unnoticed and made their way to a
cheap hotel to spend the night before travelling onwards.

“It just doesn’t seem right!” the missionary
said to his wife in a rather bitter tone, “We gave our
lives to win souls to Christ in Africa, and when we arrive home
there’s no one here to meet us and there’s no reward.
The President shoots some animals and gets a royal welcome
home.”

As they were praying before bedtime it seemed that the Lord
spoke to them and said, “Do you know why you have not
received your reward yet, my children? It’s because you
aren’t home yet!”

One final thought on slaves. In the Roman slave markets of the
first century Christian slaves fetched a higher price than
heathens. Why was this? It was the difference that the Lord Jesus
Christ made to their work.

The Lord Jesus Christ makes a dynamic difference to any man or
woman, boy or girl. He is able to save them from hell and the
penalty of sin. He transforms sinners and makes them into saints,
whatever their position in life. Has this difference come to you
yet my friend? Are you saved? Born again? Have you repented and
asked the lord to save you?

These converted slaves were reliable, respectful, diligent and
faithful. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ had so transformed
them that they were worth paying extra for. Does this not tell us
that it should equally be true of us who are Christian employees
– that we are worth having on the payroll – that we
will be worth more to our bosses than others – may it be so
for all of us who work in any capacity, not merely those in
gainful employment – but any who have any task however
small – let us do it with all our might – as unto the
Lord!